Who is Macduff and why is he important?

Macduff is one of the Scottish noblemen who are devoted to King Duncan. His character as portrayed in Macbeth is almost free from blemish. He is the most selfless person in the play and is marked for his nobility and his unflinching loyalty and patriotism. The moment he is convinced of Macbeth’s treachery, he sets himself up, against all  odds, as an uncompromising enemy to Macbeth. He does not hesitate to offend Macbeth by refusing to attend the royal banquet and thus earns his promotion to the position of his chief enemy. He runs off to England, not to save himself from Macbeth’s wrath, but to beg for assistance for his suffering country. 

Macduff is a man of action. When he learns, while in England, that his wife and children have been slaughtered, his grief knows no bound. To his patriotism is now added a personal motive of revenge against Macbeth. When he meets Macbeth on the battlefield, he wastes no time in violent abuse or empty threats; and it is Macduff who says Macbeth in the battlefield. In the battlefield Macduff reveals that he was not born of a woman in the normal sense because he was removed from his mother’s womb prematurely by means of a surgical operation. Thus Macduff proves to be an agent of the retribution against Macbeth. Thus Macduff belongs to the group of characters who represent the principle of goodness in the play as against the evil of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth.